to be by his side at every turn of the road.

"I am sure" (here Ivory's tone was somewhat dry and satirical) "that
father's road had many turns, Waitstill! He was a schoolmaster in Saco,
you know, when I was born but he soon turned from teaching to preaching,
and here my mother followed with entire sympathy, for she was intensely,
devoutly religious. I said there was little change in her, but there is
one new symptom. She has ceased to refer to her conversion to Cochranism
as a blessed experience. Her memory of those first days seems to
have faded, As to her sister's death and all the circumstances of her
bringing Rodman home, her mind is a blank. Her expectation of father's
return, on the other hand, is much more intense than ever."

"She must have loved your father dearly, Ivory, and to lose him in this
terrible way is much worse than death. Uncle Bart says he had a great
gift of language!"

"Yes, and it was that, in my mind, that led him astray. I fear that the
Spirit of God was never so strong in father as the desire to influence
people by his oratory. That was what drew him to preaching in the first
place, and when he found in Jacob Cochrane a man who could move an
audience to frenzy, lift them out of the body, and do with their spirits
as he willed, he acknowledged him as master. Whether his gospel was a
pure and undefiled religion I doubt, but he certainly was a master of
mesmeric control. My mother was beguiled, entranced, even bewitched at
first, I doubt not, for she translated all that Cochrane said into her
own speech, and regarded him as the prophet of a new era. But Cochrane's
last 'revelations' differed from the first, and were of the earth,
earthy. My mother's pure soul must have revolted, but she was not strong
enough to drag father from his allegiance. Mother was of better family
than father, but they were both well educated and had the best schooling
to be had in their day. So far as I can judge, mother always had more
'balance' than father, and much better judgment,--yet look at her now!"

"Then you think it was your father's disappearance that really caused
her mind to waver?" asked Waitstill.

"I do, indeed. I don't know what happened between them in the way of
religious differences, nor how much unhappiness these may have caused. I
remember she had an illness when we first came here to live and I was
a little chap of three or four, but that was caused by the loss of a
child, a girl, who lived o